Deciding to Intervene: The Reagan Doctrine and American Foreign Policy

Whether to intervene in conflicts in the developing world is a major and ongoing policy issue for the United States. In Deciding to Intervene, James M. Scott examines the Reagan Doctrine, a policy that provided aid to anti-Communist insurgents-or "Freedom Fighters" as President Reagan liked to call them-in an attempt to reverse Soviet advances in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Central America. Conceived early in the Reagan presidency as a means to win the Cold War, this policy was later...